On Wednesday, October 14, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced $200 million in grants to build truck parking in 12 states, a dedicated parking set-aside inside the department's main freight grant program. The money comes from the Nationally Significant Multimodal Freight & Highway Projects program, better known as INFRA, through its fiscal 2026 Track 2 awards, and it funds 14 projects that together add 2,403 public spaces for commercial vehicles. 'They shouldn't have to spend over an hour looking for a safe place to rest at the end of the day,' Duffy said of drivers in the announcement. 'This nationwide investment will make America's truckers safer, enhance our supply chains, and reduce freight costs.' FMCSA Administrator Derek Barrs called parking 'one of the most persistent challenges faced by American truckers today.' The department says it has invested more than $300 million in truck parking since April 2025, including $62 million in BUILD grants in July for Kentucky, Wyoming, Louisiana, Mississippi and Illinois. The scale of the problem has not changed: studies cited by Land Line put the national ratio at about one parking space for every 11 trucks, and about 40% of drivers report spending more than an hour a day looking for a place to park, a search Transport Topics puts at 56 minutes a day and about $5,600 a year in lost income per driver.
The 14 projects, largest to smallest
Spaces, location and federal award
Tennessee, about 500 spaces: the Greater Nashville Regional Council, on behalf of three counties, receives just under $24 million to build parking at five Pilot Travel Center locations along I-40 and I-24 near Nashville and Knoxville.
Texas, Los Indios, 305 spaces: $9 million to Cameron County to rebuild about 0.35 miles of Rio Grande Avenue and open a new public truck lot near the Los Indios Port of Entry on the Mexican border.
Georgia, Port of Savannah, about 275 spaces: $11.95 million to the Georgia Ports Authority for a commercial vehicle parking area on State Route 21 in Garden City, less than two miles from the port's Gate 4.
Connecticut, Enfield, 260 spaces: $13.5 million to the state DOT for a new facility on I-91 north of Hartford.
Iowa, 150 spaces: $24.5 million to the Iowa DOT to expand and modernize truck parking at six I-80 rest areas at Mitchellville, Wilton, Victor, Minden and Underwood.
North Carolina, Port of Wilmington, about 140 spaces: $6 million to the State Ports Authority for dedicated truck parking plus about 50 container staging positions serving I-40.
Arkansas, Crawford County, 137 spaces: about $23 million to the Arkansas DOT for a new rest area on future I-49.
Nebraska, Dawson County, 120 spaces: $7.5 million to the Nebraska DOT for a new facility on I-80 between mile markers 247 and 254.
Georgia, Monroe County, 109 spaces: $13.5 million to the Georgia DOT to add parking at the southbound I-75 weigh station and Rest Area 22.
Wisconsin, Dodge County, about 106 spaces: $15 million to the Wisconsin DOT to expand two safety rest areas on rural I-41.
Texas, Fort Worth, about 100 spaces: $5 million to the City of Fort Worth for new public spaces at the Pilot Travel Center at State Highway 170 and I-35W in the Alliance corridor.
California, Needles, 100 spaces: $6.4 million to the City of Needles for a new 15-acre truck parking area near the I-40 and California 95 interchange.
Minnesota, Fergus Falls, 63 spaces: $27.7 million to the Minnesota DOT for the I-94 rest area, the most expensive project per space on the list.
Illinois, 38 spaces: about $12.6 million to the Illinois DOT to rebuild the southbound Green Creek and Post Oak rest areas on I-57 in southern Illinois.
A few things stand out in the list. Two of the fourteen projects, in Tennessee and Fort Worth, put federal money into public parking on private truck-stop property. INFRA rules allow only public bodies or public-private partnerships to receive the grants, but a city or regional council can apply jointly with a private operator that will build or run the lot, which is how roughly a quarter of all the new spaces end up at Pilot locations. Three projects are at ports, where the problem is as much container staging as overnight rest. Cost per space ranges enormously, from about $30,000 in Los Indios and $48,000 in Tennessee to roughly $163,000 in Iowa and $440,000 in Fergus Falls, where the award pays for a full rest-area rebuild rather than pavement alone. Looking at the map, nothing on the list sits in the Northeast north of Hartford, the Pacific Northwest or the I-10 corridor through Arizona and New Mexico, and the announcement gives no construction dates; FreightWaves reports the spaces will be built 'over the next few years.'
Parking fell out of the industry's top 10 the same week
Four days after the announcement, the American Transportation Research Institute released its 2026 Top Industry Issues survey in Charlotte, and truck parking dropped from fourth to 11th overall, its first time outside the top 10 since 2012. The overall ranking is weighted toward carrier executives, who made up 48.5% of nearly 3,100 respondents. Among drivers, parking stayed exactly where it was: the No. 2 concern for company drivers (behind pay) and for owner-operators (behind fuel) alike. 'Parking at night is almost impossible,' Jason Damron, a Convoy Systems driver and captain of ATA's America's Road Team, said on the ATRI panel. 'If you pull into a truck stop at midnight, good luck on finding a park.' ATA welcomed the grants. 'Truck parking is not simply a matter of convenience,' said Henry Hanscom, the association's chief advocacy and public affairs officer. 'It is a critical safety and supply chain issue that affects every truck driver and every motorist on our highways.' The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, which has pushed parking funding for years, points to the bigger bill still waiting in Congress: the Truck Parking Safety Improvement Act, sponsored by Rep. Mike Bost of Illinois with 54 co-sponsors, would dedicate $755 million to new spaces over five years, and OOIDA notes it has been included in the BUILD America 250 Act, the House version of the next highway bill. Transport Topics adds that House appropriators advanced another $200 million for parking in the fiscal 2027 funding bill in June, and that a bipartisan House caucus report this month proposes giving states more flexibility to fund parking without new federal spending.
Also from FMCSA this week: DataQs reform is now live in all 50 states
On October 16 FMCSA announced that all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and the U.S. territories have implemented the reformed DataQs review process. Under the new requirements, a challenged inspection or crash record goes through three independent stages: an initial review that cannot be decided solely by the officer who wrote the violation, a reconsideration by subject-matter experts who were not involved in the first decision, and a final review by a senior decision-maker or independent panel. States must review requests filed within three years of an inspection and five years of a crash, must explain every denial with the evidence reviewed and next steps, and must file implementation plans, including how they will clear backlogs, that FMCSA will make public inside the DataQs system. Barrs said the agency 'promised the trucking industry that we would strengthen the DataQs process by improving timeliness and enhancing due process, and we are delivering.' The reform was part of the Pro-Trucker Package Duffy announced in the summer of 2025.
What to do with this
For drivers, owner-operators and small fleets
None of the 2,403 spaces exist yet. Plan trips on the parking you have, and if you run I-40 through Tennessee, I-80 across Iowa or I-91 north of Hartford, watch for construction notices at the sites above over the next year or two.
Six hundred of the new spaces, in Tennessee and Fort Worth, will sit on Pilot Travel Center property but are being built as public parking with federal money. Whether they stay free and open to any truck is worth watching once they open.
Your hours-of-service clock does not care that the lot is full. If you are forced to stop short or run past a rest area, note the time, location and reason in your log remarks; it is the record that protects you at a roadside inspection or in a DataQs challenge.
Parking is still the No. 2 issue for drivers in ATRI's own data. The $755 million bill in Congress is where the long-term fix sits, and the comment windows and association surveys are where the driver number gets counted.
If you have a violation you believe is wrong, file the DataQs request. The reformed process now has fixed deadlines and independent reviewers in every state, and states must say how they will clear old backlogs.
Two hundred million dollars buys 2,403 spaces, roughly one new space for every 1,500 to 1,700 Class 8 trucks in operation. It is real money, and it is a rounding error against the shortage. The real test is whether the $755 million in Congress survives the next highway bill, and whether the spaces now funded open before the drivers who need them have retired.
Parking, hours and the rules of the road, every week
Qrylo tracks the grants, the bills and the FMCSA changes that decide where you can stop and how your record gets reviewed.